Best Friends Forever

Final Interview

When I was finished reading Best Friends Forever, I had a talk with my mom about the book to wrap-up the reading assignment. First I told her what my opinions on the book were. I told her how I thought that the beginning was very slow and boring, but how it got more interesting towards the end of the book. I told her that this book had influenced me not only to be a better friend, but to choose better friends. I think this book does a good job at showing what its like when people truly care about you. I also told her that this book did not impress me as much as I hoped it would mostly because of the authors writing style. We talked about how the author literally mentions every single bit of sensory detail. She told me that she likes when books go into a lot of detail. I guess that was where we disagreed on liking the book. Its not necessarily that the book is bad, its just not my style. However, it is a best seller so I guess a lot of people must have liked it. I also told her how I was glad that I stuck with the book and waited until the ending because it was nice to see everything come together. After feeling so bad for Addie throughout the book, it was really nice to see her finally become happy. My mother says that the part that sticks out to her the most in this book is that even though Valerie left Addie as a teenager for the more popular kids, and really screwed Addie over, Addie was still able to forgive Valerie. I agreed with my mom about how influential that part of the book was. We came to the conclusion that family has similar characteristics in the fact that family can be so mean and ruthless to each other, but in the end, family is usually very good at forgiving each other. Personally, I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone. I didn't think this book was that bad, its just that I didn't think this book was that good either. There wasn't that much depth to the plot in my opinion. I would much rather recommend a book like The Hunger Games.

Best Friends Forever

My Impressions

I have recently come to a pretty interesting part of the book. After the author took a long time describing the childhood, now the author has moved into describing the teenage years. This part of the book tells about how Valerie (one of the main characters) got raped. During high school, even though the girls had drifted apart, Valerie told Addie (the other main character). Addie, having always been the shy/responsible one of the two, told her parents what had happened to Valerie. Her parents got the boy who raped Valerie in trouble, but since the boy was popular, the whole school turned against Addie for being a nark. For the rest of high school Addie was an outcast, even worse off then before. In college she didn't have much luck being popular either. She had to live at home and take care of her mother who was ill and dying. She ended up dropping out of school to be with her mother full time. In order to generate revenue, she sold little greeting cards with painting on them. After her mother passed away, she also began to take care of her brother who lived in a disability home not too far away from their house. The book gets a little confusing at times because it jumps around from time-period to time-period. However, now there is starting to be more action as the girls unravel and discuss the things that drove them apart so many years ago. Slowly but surely the author is showing the reader their growing friendship through gestures and words. I suspect Addie and Valerie will only grow closer throughout the rest of the book.

Best Friends Forever

My Impressions

So far, I have read the first eighty pages of this four-hundred page book and I am completely unimpressed. The murder-mystery has hardly begun, and its not even a mystery. It turns out that one friend hit someone they don't like with their car on accident and fled the crime scene. However, the person they hit is not dead and there is hardly a mystery to it. There may be a twist or turn later in the book to make it more mysterious but as for now its honestly very lame. The author has gone on and on about one of the characters childhood life. This book focuses on describing every detail of scenery (something I hate in books). I hate when authors take too much time describing scenery because it is uninteresting to me. I would rather them continue on with the plot with just a hint of sensory detail. The author does do a good job telling the reader about the friendship. She makes the dynamics of the friendship clear by showing through stories who the dominant friend is. The childhood stories are rather boring because they take place in a rural area where there is not much excitement. In fact the author spends a lot of time talking about how the mother is fat, and the father makes puppets. These details in my mind are useless to the point of the story (maybe that is why the book is so long!). I have considered switching books, however I think it would be good for me if I read a book I didn't like because I will have to read many books I don't like in college. Hopefully this book will get better.

The Hunger Games

Final Interview:

The day I finished reading this book I read 72 pages. I think that breaks a record of the most I have ever read in one day. I literally couldn't stop. My uncle was right, this book is such a page turner. I was constantly dying to know what would happen next. I even had dreams about the book which were kind of wierd. Anyways, a few days after I finished it, I called up my uncle for the final interview. I told him that I completely agreed with him about how it is actually a fun read. Even more fun than watching T.V. (which is kind of a big deal for us to agree on). We discussed some of the similarities between Panem and the USA. However, we also came to the conclusion that the USA would never be as corrupted as Panem was. He thought that the comparisions I found were sort of a stretch. But I guess that was just a part of the book that we disagreed upon. His main point that he wanted me to get out of reading this book was that reading can actually be fun sometimes. Although, I think he was just saying that to encourage me, because when I asked him if he was reading any books now, he said no. Either way, I'm glad that he chose that book for me. It was a nice book to enjoy over summer. Although I don't think it was life changing, I do think that it gave me a more positive outlook on reading and possibly helped my reading speed increase.

The Hunger Games

374 pages

My Impressions

2. The book has definitely gotten a lot more gruesome as the hunger games have began. Because the book was very slow in the beginning, I did not expect this much action to be crammed into the second half. In the hunger games, 24 children are chosen  between the 12 Districts to fight in an arena and battle to the death. Of course, the main character Katniss is great at hunting with a bow and arrow because she used to hunt so often back at home. However, the other contenders have skills of their own. Some are huge and very strong, others know how to throw knives with amazing accuracy, and some simply survive off of knowledge of the woods. It is difficult to explain the hunger games to someone who hasn't read the book. Essentially, they are a way for the capitol to control the Districts and make them pay for a rebellion that was aimed to destroy the captiol over a hundred years ago. I am enjoying how action packed this part of the book is. However, it is sad when characters I like are killed off. I recently found out that this book is going to be made into a movie in march 2012! I am very excited to watch it.

The Hunger Games

374 pages

My Impressions:

1. I am really enjoying the way that the author is setting up the plot. Although so far in the book, there has not been much crazy action, the author is giving a lot of background knowledge about the country: "Panem". So far, I have learned that there are 12 Districts. I compare the Districts to States. District 1 is the wealthiest, and as the number goes up, the Districts are poorer. The main character lives in the poorest District (District 12). Her name is Katniss. She has a little sister named Prim who she takes care of. Her mother is not very good at taking care of the children so Katniss sort of acts like the head of the family. Her father is dead, so her way of getting food on the table is hunting in the woods outside of District 12. She hunts with a boy named Gale who she is obviously in love with although she does not admit it. So far, the book has explained a lot about "the capitol" which controls the Districts. It reminds me of how the federal government has ultimate power over the states (except far more extreme). There is a lot of corruption within the capitol. I can see some parellelism between the nation of Panem and our nation. However, Panem definitely has more exaggerated corruption. I am enjoying the conversations that Gale and Katniss have about the Capitol in the woods. The authors use of their conversations are helping give me a lot of background about their nation. So far, the book is a total page turner.

Interviews:

When I first heard about this summers reading assignment I was very excited. Immediately, in my head, I formulated a general idea of who I wanted to interview. The first person I wanted to be someone who hates to read. Someone who has probably only picked up a limited number of books in their entire lifetime. The second person I wanted to be someone who loved to read. A person who when I asked "which book has impacted your life", would probably respond with ten different answers before narrowing down to just one.

I knew without a doubt that my mother would be chosen as the second person I interview (the one with the love of literature). However, I wasn't so quick to decide who the first person would be. Not many adults are outright and blunt about their hatred for reading. So using my very own prejudiceness (however, only for good), I chose to ask my uncle Kelly what he thought about books.

(uncle Kelly ^ )

Not all too shockingly, he confirmed to me that books were not his area of expertise. He prefers riding his motorcycle shirtless, as you can see in the picture above.

THE INTERVIEWS:

My Mother:

My mother, Delores Washburn, has always been genuinely excited about reading. She chooses to always take a book with her no matter where she goes. When I told my mom about the summer reading assignment, she was ecstatic, mostly because she has been recommending books to me my entire life (although I rarely read the ones she chooses). She told me she wanted me to read a book called Best Friends Forever. She had read it only months ago. She said that this book completely changed her view on relationships between people. When I asked her why it was life impacting, she responded by explaining how it shows what true friends are like. She told me that it will make you realize who your real friends are in life compared to your fake ones. I thought that was a kind of interesting response coming from my mother, considering I have not seen her have very many friends outside of the "co-workers" realm. The next question I asked her was what the genre of the book was. She replied that it was a murder/mystery with a hint of comedy. I typically am not a big fan of mystery books because I get lost very quickly when it comes to evidence and such. However, she recommended it, and therefore I had to give it a shot.

My Uncle:

Uncle Kelly lives in Virginia, however, every year in June he flies out to California to cause some craziness. Its the only time in the year where I can see my parents vomit from alcohol poisoning. Unfortunately, I started the summer reading assignment only a few weeks after he left, so I had to conduct the interview over the phone. I began by asking him a little bit about how he did in school. He replied with laughter. He was never the type to sit down and study. Then I asked him if he was big on reading. He said that he wasn't opposed to reading, but he rarely found time to sit down with a book. He also mentioned that reading bored him most of the time. I asked him approximately how many books he had pick up in his lifetime. After a little bit of thought he said probably over 20. But because I know my uncle too well, I asked how many of those twenty he finished. He said less than ten. After my initial questioning, I told him a little bit about the summer reading assignment. I explained what we were supposed to get out of it as students and that I wanted him to choose a good book for me to read. He picked a book for me rather quickly: The Hunger Games. He explained that he chose this book because it is a fun interesting read, but mainly because it was the first book he read that he actually truly enjoyed. He said that although it didn't necessarily change his outlook on life, it did change his outlook on reading. He told me that he read the book with his new girlfriend Robin a little over a year ago. It was the first book he had picked up in over a decade, but she was set on them reading it together. To his surprise, it was a total page-turner.